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Same-sex families on rise despite opposition

Tue, Apr 22, 2008, 01:00

Quentin Fottrell

IF WE can't even decide whether vitamin supplements are good for
our children - judging by one report last week by Copenhagen
University Hospital in Denmark - we can forget about relying on the
raft of studies since the 1970s about same-sex parenting, despite
the fact that the resulting data is overwhelmingly supportive.

Social science, religion, law and politics are colliding with
dangerous results, even though nearly 40 years of studies on
children of gay parents predominantly conclude it's the quality of
care that counts.

As we saw by last week's inadequate High Court ruling on the "de
facto" family of a lesbian couple and child, to the exclusion of
the rights of the biological father against his will, the issue
won't go away. It is crying out for legislation. I agree with Breda
O'Brien on one salient issue: "As the most vulnerable party, the
rights and needs of the child must come first." (We differ quite a
bit after that.) Children in all relationships - same-sex or
opposite-sex - should be respected and dignified with adoption law
that protects them.

Last month, Anna Sarkadi from the Department of Women's and
Children's Health, Uppsala University, Sweden, said Patricia
Casey's conclusion of her research "is not valid" and "there is
nothing whatsoever in our review that would justify the conclusion
that same-sex parents cannot raise healthy children who do well".
Last week, Melanie Verwoerd, executive director of Unicef Ireland,
wrote to this newspaper to say that yet another reference by Casey
was "incorrect and unacceptable". Their words, not mine.

Casey is a patron of a conservative web-based "institute" that
has hitched its wagon to the issue, and a professor of psychiatry,
but I believe hers was a genuine attempt to support her world
view.

"There is a real danger that this debate is going to be led by
emotion," she has said. "It must instead be led by reason and a
calm consideration of the facts."

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I agree. As does the American Academy of Pediatrics, American
Psychological Association and American Psychiatric Association -
and many more - which support same-sex parenting.

Still, some organisations and commentators are like blinded
moths, forever fluttering around the inextinguishable flames of gay
civil rights. Happily, the flames won't burn them. Nordic Bliss?
Scandinavian Registered Partnerships and the Same-Sex Marriage
Debate, a book by Darren Spedale, William Eskridge and Hans
Ytterberg, says in the years after Denmark, Norway and Sweden
introduced same-sex unions, the rates of heterosexual marriage went
up, while the rate of heterosexual divorce went down.

The US is years ahead in the evolution of non-traditional
families and a fertile ground for studies. Early samples have been
small and, sometimes, skewed towards white/lesbian households, but
over time methodologies have greatly improved and been very - some
say unusually - consistent. Some aim to prove that all families are
the same. All families are intrinsically different. And that's
okay. As for stigma, bullying or self-esteem issues, you may need
to look at intolerant, divisive forces outside the family for
sources of that.

In 2001, American sociologists Judith Stacey and Timothy J
Biblarz reviewed 21 studies of children of gay parents. They found
almost no systematic differences with opposite sex parents. In
2006, Dr Stacey said: "I am deeply troubled by the ways in which
Focus on the Family wilfully misrepresents my research on lesbian
and gay parenthood to support their ideological opposition to
homosexuality.

"This politically motivated distortion of social science
contributes to serious harm to lesbian and gay parents, and their
children."

Data from studies is twisted and used in dubious ping-pong
matches by groups at opposite ends of the political/social
spectrum. Similar controversies plague cancer research, which pits
mainstream medicine against other forms of care; race and IQ, where
the argument centres around genetics versus environment; diet - see
vitamins A and B, above; climate change; and, last but not least,
the great debate of our age, boxers or briefs. (There is no
empirical conclusion on the latter - it depends who's wearing
them.)

Ultimately, we are left with the raw data: families. The debate
on parenting will start and end with the individual.

That is why so many couples stand tall and are prepared to be
interviewed by the media, only to be turned into a soundbite on TV,
feature article or sensational tabloid headline.

This is why they subject themselves to that. They know that
speaking about their experience of same-sex family life publicly is
a powerful way for people to understand why they - and their
children - need protection under the law, too.

We can quote or misquote studies. We can criticise or laud them.
We can make papier mache dolls' houses out of them. We can hide our
true feelings about homosexuality behind them. The reality is that
same-sex families are on the increase whether people like it or
not. For those who oppose that, the battle is already lost.

We can staple our objections to data and nail them to a
crossword in
The Irish Timesif we want to. But the global winds of
change are coming and, sooner or later, will blow those objections
away.